R & D

Aura™ Biosciences is applying its platform Nanosmart™ technology to two important areas, the well-studied area of chemotherapeutics and the emerging field of RNAi.
 

ONCOLOGY

In addition to surgery and radiation, chemotherapy is considered the gold standard in adjuvant/neoadjuvant treatment for oncology patients. However, traditional chemotherapy targets cells that are rapidly dividing, killing both cancerous and healthy tissue, and resulting in side effects such as hair loss, mouth ulcers, and even death.

Aura Biosciences is developing a new generation of nano-delivered chemotherapy designed to improve the efficacy and reduce the toxicity of these powerful agents. Nanosmart particles will encapsulate the drug and use tumor-specific markers to target it to cancerous cells, releasing the therapy only once inside the tumor. Nanosmart chemotherapy will provide better results with fewer side effects, allowing many more patients to benefit from these important therapies.
 

TARGETED DELIVERY OF RNAi

Potent knockdown of a gene of interest with high sequence specificity makes RNA interference (RNAi) a promising tool to treat a variety of important diseases. However, a key issue for clinical use of these molecules is delivery. Since nucleic acids are highly charged, they do not cross cell membranes by free diffusion, and their hydrophilic, anionic backbones further reduce their uptake by cells. Aura Biosciences is applying its Nanosmart platform to these delivery challenges, creating nanoparticles that are optimized to mediate specific and targeted cell entry, allowing small interfering RNA (siRNA) to be delivered in vivo.